Facebook Data Leak 2021

Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality means that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) cannot discriminate against Internet content and services by blocking, throttling or granting them higher speed access.

• To ensure a free and fair digital economy that promotes inclusiveness and innovation, decentralized accessibility and free flow of data is must.
• However, it was observed in India that companies brought out “zero rating”packages like Facebook’s Free basics service and Airtel’s Airtel zero platform which allowed its customers to access a few mobile applications for free. This was against the global norms of Net Neutrality and hence rules to stop this practice were released.

Current Status

After a year-long campaign by internet activists, the government finally forbade operators from charging “prohibitory tariffs” for data and throttling data speeds for any online service. India’s Internet will now be governed by the rules of net neutrality as the Digital Communications Commission (erstwhile Telecom Commission) has accepted the recommendations made by regulatory body TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Association of India).

Some of the Net Neutrality rules include:

• Discriminatory treatment of content will be prohibited. No extra charge can be levied for browsing other internet channels.
• The rules bar ISPs from creating high-speed data lanes.
• The rules debar zero-rating packages like Facebook’s Free Basics service, where certain content is provided for free like access to Facebook and these packages remains illegal in India.

Social Media Statistics in India

• Active social network penetration as of January 2021-32.3%
• Active social media users -448 million
• The average daily time spent using the Internet is 6 hours 36 mins. of which 2 hours 25 mins of the daily time is spent using social media.
• In India, YouTube is the most used social media platform in 2021 with 85.80% of the social media users enrolled.
• 79% of the users in India have profiles on Facebook and that makes it the second most popular platform. Facebook platform faces stiff competition from Instagram which has 70.60% of social media users in India.
• A few other social media platforms that are popular in India are Twitter (50.6% penetration), LinkedIn (37.7% penetration), Pinterest (34.3% penetration) and Reddit (22.1% penetration).